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Since when are there Swede rappers? That is weird enough in itself.

What are you even trying to imply here? Rap has been a thing in Sweden for decades, what's weird about it?

I get that drugs are largely the issue, but these people live in a country with a laundry list of social welfare programs that most people could only dream of. Free healthcare, free education at all levels, and a boatload of economic support initiatives for people in poverty. They literally are living life on easy mode compared to the rest of the poor people in the world for the most part. Why do they turn to drugs in the first place? It clearly shouldnt be out of hopelessness for their situation…

We've been dealing with rising inequality in Sweden for the last ~50 years. We've also had large amounts of immigration, with these immigrants in many ways having become second class citizens, getting concentrated into the diminishing stock of social housing/slum lord-controlled areas. We also have an unusually restrictive policy against drugs, the sales of which then becoming one of the few lucrative options for someone growing up in a poor area.

It's similar motivations to what happens in the U.S - if you're poor, some of the only realistic options for making it big from your perspective is either a career in professional sports (see Zlatan Ibrahimovic) or drugs (see various gang bosses)

This whole situation is ridiculous. It seems like there is some underlying culture glorifying the violence that occurs in countries where people dont have any of what the Swedes have available to them. None of them need to deal drugs to survive, or commit acts of violence. None of them even need to be using drugs out of hopelessness for their future. Its like the equivalent of suburban American kids with college funds wanting to be gangbangers because they think its cool. Fucking stupid

It's not necessarily that they pursue these "careers" out of a need to fuel a drug addiction, although that may certainly become a motivation for maintaining it - along with the threat of violence if leaving.

Some of the largest consumers of drugs in Sweden are the richest people, having lots of money to spend on cocaine. Again, a similar situation to the U.S in many ways here.

Unless something drastic has happened in just 2025 that isn't reflected in the data yet, the actual murder rate in Sweden hasn't really changed much in the past 30 years. It's high by Nordic standards, middle of the road for European standards, and low by global standards. Sweden is still just a normal country with normal human problems, even if it is very prosperous and has a lot of sensible government policies

That there are Swedish rappers definitely isn't that weird either. I don't even enjoy rap and I've heard of a Greenlandic rapper. I've got a Togolese metal band on my main playlist. There was a Black American blues singer who went to Tuva in Russia to learn throat singing and got nicknamed "Earthquake" becauseof how low his voice was. People like music from all over

Sweden took in more refugees than it had infrastructure to help integrate with. Swedes are culturally insular so when there were friction points the Swedish reaction is pull back. This leads to isolation. That lead to ghettos and a perfect breading ground for crime and gangs. It’s mainly Kurds and Somalis pushing cocaine that fueling a turf war. Because of Swedens laws protecting minors the gangs have figured out that paying them for hits on rivals and their families had little penalty. This started in Denmark as their testing ground. Sweden is trying to pass laws which would effectively expel the minor and their families for these kinds of crimes, but it’s a reactionary policy which won’t solve the underlying problems. There’s no simple quick fix here.

I think the Nordic countries get held up as these utopias when that's actually far from the truth. I have a Swedish friend on a disability pension, and I'm also on the same sort of pension here in Australia. She gets a bit less than half of what I do a month. It's not like she has other social programs that make up for it really either. We both have access to similar healthcare, I think I'm paying less for meds, I have much better disability insurance covering other things like support work and mobility aids.

I think some people just have this false impression of places like Sweden. I guess they look pretty great if you're from the US but yeah...

I will not tolerate this Yung Lean slander!

I expect that this might me due to functional police and criminal investigation systems. Less functional countries, which are in the majority, will likely fail to find the right perpetrator, fail to report on it, blame the crime on the wrong person, ignore the crime, etc.

Those suburban kids emulate street gangs while the leaders of those street gangs emulate the fathers of those suburban kids in the corporate structure.

as hard as it is to accept, a lot of the issues were imported by immigration and a failure to make sure that the immigrants get integrated into society. from what i know, there's a pretty deep divide there, with immigrants being disadvantaged in society and the swedes themselves feeling overwhelmed by a flood of immigrants. Sadly that's a good substrate for gang violence and yeah, like you said, it's stupid.

Edit since people seem to misunderstand: The failure lies in the integration, not with the immigrants. Sweden imported a lot of traumatized people and neither gave them therapy nor the means to function in swedish society a.k.a. education so they can get jobs. The gangbangers today are second or third generation immigrants mixed with the lower class native kids, all of them inherited the trauma from their parents through abuse and addiction. All of them share that they don't have a perspective for the future that would give them a way out.